Two Poems

When the train rose all magic-hour-likeup to 161st in the Bronx & I looked upfrom the Dillard essay I had assignedmy community college class, the city lookedon the precipice of something apocalypticyet kind. Like God (are you there?) melteda Jolly Rancher over us all. We would besticky & sweet, licking fingers & toes of sugarbefore jumping into rivers. God servesas a useful tool in poetry because I canbring him (or her? sorry) in when I wantand leave her (or him? apologies) outwhen he-she-it-I-they is not needed.I have tried to do this with peoplebut have found that they will hate mefor it & I cannot tell if this is proofeither that God does not exist or thatpeople don’t. There is too much going on.On the train the people wore headphones& all was silent. Dillard writes that the mindwants the world to return its love, but I knowit won’t. My mind’s love is a dreamof heaven. My mind’s love is the smellof a burning leaf. My mind’s love meansthat I might die before the world is ready,or, worse, that the world might diebefore I am ready. & somewhere outthere someone is humming & have younoticed that many things carry a humansound? The whisper of electricity, thestomach gurgle of an old car. It was darkwhen class started & Richard had his headon his desk. When I asked him where he waslast class, he said he got lost. I didn’t askwhere or why or how. I wanted to smilebut instead sipped a cold cup of Dunkin' Donutscoffee. It was dark, still. Richard got lost& I thought of that Joni Mitchell songwhere Joni sings about how all good dreamerspass this way someday & Richard got lost& I thought of where or why or how &though I didn’t ask, I thought that Richardcould tell me a fine & beautiful storyone day & I would love to listen, in a dark café.

Poem for a Child Running Away from Home

You walk the long road till dawn. There is water & a stream & all of Arizona

cliff-cut & bruised. You stop to drink. Your brother & you watched Men in Black 2

in a small room inside the rehab facility. You want to remember this for a long time.

The smell of cold turkey, Heinz 57 sauce, a sky that held a sky that held a sky that held a

plane, & how your friend George years later would write a poem that said: did you know

a kiss could leave contrails in the air? You can be anything you want to be,

except now. Now, you are the wind that blows the dust that hides the prints

your footsteps make as you walk away. Now, you are the ink your mother used

when she wrote I’ll be back later & later became a day & then a month & then

a plane trip to Arizona where most things dry up in the sun & you don’t understand

how someone could get better here. So you leave. You can be anything

you want to be except a good son. You can be a fighter pilot parachuting

out of a test plane somewhere over Pomerene, Dos Cabezas, Tombstone.

You can be a face you put on at parties. You can be the words you use to make

someone feel sorry for you. You can be the plane crashing into the side of a mountain.

Stop drinking. Don’t you know most water is bad for you? Save for the small cupped ounces

they gave your mother to help her swallow the sedatives just a minute after she birthed you?

You didn’t know that, did you? It’s a pain to bring someone into the world. The stream

will dry up soon. You will be cold without the desert sun. You will miss

there must be so many people kissing now, kissing long & hard & into the dawn.

Devin Kelly earned his MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is a co-host of the Dead Rabbits Reading Series in Manhattan. His collaborative chapbook with Melissa Smyth, This Cup of Absence, is forthcoming from Anchor & Plume Press, and his other work has appeared in Drunken Boat, Gigantic Sequins, Post Road, The Millions, and more. He's on twitter @themoneyiowe.